Bloom Energy Claims a New Fuel Cell Technology
By TODD WOODY
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — A Silicon Valley company is claiming a breakthrough in a decades-old quest to develop fuel cells that can supply affordable and relatively clean electricity. Google, Bank of America, Wal-Mart and other large corporations have been testing the devices, which will be formally introduced on Wednesday.
The start-up, Bloom Energy, has raised about $400 million from investors and spent nearly a decade developing a new variety of solid oxide fuel cell, considered the most efficient but most technologically challenging fuel-cell technology.
K. R. Sridhar, Bloom’s co-founder and chief executive, said devices made by his company were generating electricity at a cost of 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour, using natural gas. That is lower than commercial electricity prices in some parts of the country.
“We got into this business to make affordable electricity, not fuel cells,” Mr. Sridhar said Tuesday as workers assembled stacks of fuel cells in tall, round cylinders and installed them in silver metal cubes at Bloom’s headquarters in a Silicon Valley office park.
The company has been working on the technology for eight years while saying little. The secrecy, and the prominence of the venture capitalists backing Bloom, have fueled both hype and skepticism about its efforts. Bloom is scheduled to unveil the technology Wednesday at a news conference attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Colin Powell, the former secretary of state and a member of Bloom’s board.
While Bloom may well have created one of the most efficient fuel cells, it is unclear how widely the company’s technology will be adopted. Cost and durability have limited the use of other types of fuel cells, and it could be years before the potential of the company’s approach is clear.
“We have been working with solid oxide for 30 years but are still in the lab,” said Mike Brown, an executive with UTC Power, a division of the United Technologies Corporation and a leading fuel-cell maker. “Nobody has been able to resolve the reliability problem.”
Fuel cells, which convert hydrogen, natural gas or another fuel into electricity through an electrochemical process, have long held out the promise of cheap and plentiful energy while emitting fewer pollutants than conventional power plants. But the need to use expensive precious metals like platinum and rare earth elements in some fuel cells, and corrosive materials in others, has kept costs high and shortened their longevity.
Bloom claims it has learned to make the devices from common materials that will last for years. The Bloom fuel cell’s heart is a thin white ceramic wafer made from sand. At Bloom’s offices, Mr. Sridhar, a former NASA scientist, picked up a stack of fuel cells that resembled floppy disks. One side of each was painted with a lime-green ink that acts as the anode while a black ink on the back served as the cathode. Bloom executives would not disclose the composition of the ink.
Small cells are stacked to make a larger device. As natural gas or another fuel passes over the cell and mixes with oxygen from the air, a chemical reaction generates electricity.
Bloom executives contend that their device could cut the greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation by at least 50 percent, depending on the type of fuel used — a claim that is likely to receive close scrutiny.
Mr. Brown, the UTC Power executive, said one of the biggest hurdles to developing solid oxide fuel cells has been engineering the stack to withstand extreme temperatures without cracking or leaking. “What is the durability of cell stack, how long will they operate before you have to pull them out and replace them and what is the cost to do that?” he said.
Mr. Sridhar contends the Bloom boxes, with reasonable maintenance, will have a 10-year life span.
“It’s a disruptive technology,” said John Doerr, a prominent venture capitalist who helped finance Bloom and sits on its board. “It works, so the hurdles are scale and cost. We’ve got to make a lot of these systems reliably, and that’s hard work.”
State of Movement
State of the Movement
Tonight President Obama laid out his plan for moving our nation forward in 2010.
He made a bold call for clean-energy jobs, saying, "the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation."
While we appreciate the President's leadership, there is no question that without a climate and energy bill signed into law, we cannot realize his vision.
Tonight President Obama laid out his plan for moving our nation forward in 2010.
He made a bold call for clean-energy jobs, saying, "the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation."
While we appreciate the President's leadership, there is no question that without a climate and energy bill signed into law, we cannot realize his vision.
What we need now is not only words, but action. Not only vision, but the resolve and strength to make that vision real for America's communities.
We also must remember a simple truth that we forgot in 2009. It is not only up to President Obama to bring change to America. That is also our job.
It was a grassroots movement for change that swept him into office, and a grassroots movement that must push President Obama further. We must raise our voices and demand a better, healthier, more just future for all Americans.
Our communities still need investments in the green economy that create health, wealth, and opportunity.
America still needs to transform our economy into one that protects the earth, rather than poisoning it.
And we still need, more than ever, comprehensive climate and energy legislation that caps carbon pollution and creates millions of green jobs.
We've always known that it will take a strong movement to help the President carry through on his promises.
In 2010, we must rise to that challenge.
www.greenforall.org
